“Surrogates” and its Bioethical Implications

The other night I finally watched Surrogates (2009)  starring Bruce Willis. The story takes place several decades in the future and essentially portrays 21st century society as a giant “grid” of humanoid robots that take the place of natural human bodies. Through the advances of neuroscience, the human mind can control machines, and through more advances in neurotechnology, those machines can appear, function, and provide direct sensory experience just as a normal human body. So, why expose yourself (that is, your normal body) to the dangers of the outside world when you can plug-in at home and operate a better-looking,  more functional, and expendable surrogate to take your place? Surrogates thus give more freedom and power to human beings while taking away physical risk and personal responsibility. Life is better than ever before with the invention of the artificial you: surrogates.

There’s no need to explain the plot line of the film since this is not a movie review. The purpose of this essay is to look at the faulty bioethical presuppositions being promulgated in the film and the bankruptcy of man’s end-game in the biotechnological race.  It is necessary to look more closely at the concept of human mind-body connections through the lens of a presuppositional, Reformed, Christian worldview. Why? Because the film hardly made the “science fiction” genre (because of how close it portrays future technologies), and Christian apologists continue to overlook the growing beast of secular and naturalistic neurophilosophy walking closer and closer towards their front porch.

Science Fiction in the Making?

Fiction assumes nonfiction. Illusion assumes reality. Truth and freedom assume standards of falsity and enslavement. How far is today’s real biotechnology from the unreal technology in Surrogates? Consider the following facts, true as of 2010:

Animal Biotech

• A monkey ate a banana with a bionic arm just by thinking (2006-2009, video here)
• A monkey in Japan walked on a treadmill at Duke University in the United States with bionic legs controlled by its thoughts. (2008, video here)
• The electronic tongue and bionic tongue have been constructed and used on pigs in Germany.

Thoughts to Bionic Action and Artificial Sensory Organs

• A mute man spoke vowels from across the room (wirelessly) at Boston University CNS Speech Lab through a synthesizer, simply by thinking (2008-2009, video here and here)
• A paralyzed man uses Braingate (direct chip-to-brain interface) to use a bionic hand just by thinking (2008, video here).
• Deaf people can hear with bionic ears/cochlear implants (1972+, video here).
• Blind people can see with bionic eyes through cortical visual neuroprosthesis, retinal prosthesis,  etc., (video here and here and here).

Brain Cognition and Cyber-Space

• A student from the University of Wisconsin changed his twitter status just by thinking (2009, video here).
• A disabled man used Braingate (direct chip-to-brain interface) to play pong on his computer by thinking (2008, video here).

General Robotics

• Consumer robots like Asimo and Nao can walk up stairs on two legs and even run with air-born strides (video here ).
• Scientists in Europe forged the Perception-on-Purpose Project, which combines visual and auditory sensory input into “purposeful perception.” (2009)

Clearly, we’ve come a long way. And there’s no question that if one would expect the core technologies of the film Surrogates to come into reality, we would expect all of these things to happen here and now, which they are. But what are the implications from all of this new technology? What has neuroscience taught us about the human body, person, and experience?

A Few Preliminary Remarks Regarding Neuroscience and the Christian Worldview

1. It all happens in the brain. Pain, pleasure, taste and touch, hearing and seeing all take place in the brain. The feel of buttons underneath your finger tips occurs in the brain, just as the pain of dropping a hammer on your foot, or music, or sex, or even prayer and its effects happen between a person’s ears. In that sense, conscious experience occurs in the brain, however, it is by no means limited to the brain (see number 3). Whatever the case, something substantial, something significant occurs in the human brain that doesn’t happen anywhere else.
2. The brain is the most complex physical structure in the universe; it is the master handiwork of God, and as such, the structure of the brain reflects the nature of God in its amazing unity and diversity. Because of this, it is in many ways comprehensible and possible to interpret, and in others incomprehensible and impossible to interpret. We can hook up fake arms, ears, eyes, and other body parts to a person’s brain, and he can control them to some degree. But, no artificial organ or limb has yet exceeded the capabilities of the original – first because of our limited understanding of the brain, second because of our limited engineering technology. We know only to some degree how to interpret brain waves and groups of neurological pulses. Why? Because the brain, in its activity and function, is both possible and impossible to interpret. It’s just too stinking complex; we’re just beginning to begin to understand it. Think of it as noticing some patterns of a text in a foreign language and drawing some general conclusions about this and that, but never really being able to translate it accurately into fully-orbed sentences and assertions. Scientists have yet to exhaust the diverse patterns of the brain, both its patterns of unity as much as patterns of plurality.
3. If unified perception is in some way “consciousness,” then conscious experience can be thought of as spatially and physically relative at least to the extent that it does not depend upon the physical location of one’s body. I remember playing video games at a LAN party back in high school, and hearing the language between players in a first-person shooter, “Man, I totally got you!” and “come over here!” Of course, the “I” and “you” were not the actual you, but the characters in the game (the digital “surrogate” if you will). Operators, even of only the simple visual and auditory experience of a video game, in a strange way really do “get in the game.”  In other words, the point of the film The Matrix is legitimate: with all senses being directed into a unified conscious experience from extra-bodily sources of input (i.e. a software program, a surrogate in another location, etc.), there’s no reason to think the focus of one’s mind, the conscious experience of the soul (or “the self,” “person,” etc.), is bound by the physical location of one’s actual body. “You” are where your “conscious experience” is, at least if one considers a person’s mind/content of thoughts as being distinct from one’s body (and there is often biblical warrant for doing so, as we’ll see). Through the neurological work of Ramachandran and others, we already know that a person can be deceived into thinking he has/doesn’t have limbs that he doesn’t/does have – and in fact, can actually experience (feel) the activity of limbs that don’t even exist as a part of their body (that is, actual and not pretended sensory experience). However, Ramachandran draws radical conclusions from these neuroscientific studies such as, “the self that almost by definition is entirely private is to a significant extent a social construct – a story you make up for others,” (Phantoms 254), and most disturbingly, “Science…is telling us that we have no privileged position in the universe and that our sense of having a private nonmaterial soul ‘watching the world’ is really an illusion…you are in fact part of the eternal ebb and flow of events in the cosmos,” (256). From a Christian perspective, these conclusions cannot be accepted (see I Cor. 15:42-51, cf. Gen. 1-2). But Ramachandran’s more general conclusions can (and must, according to a consistent apologetic) be accepted. Numerous texts in Scripture, especially Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, recount the “out of body” experiences of the prophets. For example, John remained in the prison at Patmos island while John was being lifted up to the spectacular sights of the throne-room of God; his conscious experience (like anyone’s experience) did not depend upon the physical location of his body (see all references to “was in the Spirit” in Revelation, and “the Spirit entered me” and “the Spirit lifted me up” in Ezekiel). Also, notice how Ezekiel experienced sounds, sights, and even tastes in Ez. 1-3 while the whole time his body was in the same location (Ez. 1:1; 3:15). (Keep in mind, this is not the same assertion as the phrases “I am with you in spirit” or “to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord,” etc. in the New Testament.)

The False Presuppositions Beneath Surrogates and Non-Christian Neurological Endeavors

As you should know, Isaac Asimov is the author of both Surrogates and iRobot with Will Smith. If you recall, Dr. Spooner (Smith) had a bionic arm transplant in the film. And there were several scenes in the movie that demonstrated the superiority (strength, endurance, etc.) of the bionic arm over his other, natural arm. The basic assertion is that with the advances of science and technology, human beings have created a better design than the original. In fact, given enough time, human beings can supersede themselves, build a better version of their species due to the abundant wisdom flowing out of the scientific community (this is asserted elsewhere in literature and movies).

But, as many Christian scholars have pointed out (Christopher Hook, etc.), this mentality builds off of a Darwinian worldview. Why should evolution stop with human beings? Why not speed up the process of evolution by creating super-humans, something far better than the Christian “God” ever would have imagined?

The Christian presupposition, on the other hand, is that in their sinless state, organisms like the human body are designed perfectly to carry out their specific purpose. There were no faults in DNA, no physiology deformities, etc. The design was perfect and as such cannot be improved upon. Why? Because the One who created it is alone perfect.

Outside that presupposition, however, you’ll hear quite the opposite. Not only can human beings out-do their already superior status in the animal kingdom, but they can re-engineer far better than any alleged Creator. We’re told that it would have been better to swap the location of the throat and the wind-pipe so people wouldn’t choke so easily, that most of the biological information in DNA is “junk” (so much for that, see here and here), etc. The faulty presupposition infecting this worldview, of course, is that perfection can be measured outside of God’s existence, and that man is the measure of all things.

This presupposition infiltrates Surrogates and most science-fiction movies of this kind. Far beyond the concept of restoration, the human body can be enhanced and changed and improved upon in so many ways (most likely due to the process of evolution, although that is not always directly alluded to) that the films almost leave us with an emotional longing for the future, to the wonderful days of the surrogates where one can experience and indulge in all the passions of the flesh with minimal consequences.

Christian Bioethics

But the fact of the matter is that not only is trying to “enhance” and re-engineer God’s perfect design bioethically wrong, but it is wholly impossible. God’s gift of life and the human experience in its sinless, unaltered state could and can never be enhanced, improved, or changed by the creature to produce a wholly better result. That is the Christian teaching. That is the biblical presupposition regarding bioethics and biotechnology. Therefore, it is delusional to think that man can create or reconstruct any part of the body (or whole body), beyond fixing the problems of the original design, in a wholly better fashion than originally created by God.

The materialistic, naturalistic scientific community simply does not believe this. They talk about how much more sturdy and strong a robotic arm is than the human arm, but for some reason never mention how noisy it is (not silent like the natural design), and how it is subject to corrosion (not water-proof like the original design), and incredibly inefficient (not efficient like the God’s design). Dozens of other examples could be given. At creation, God established a purpose for his images and the best possible biological means of fulfilling that purpose. Therefore, today’s attempts of enhancement (not restoration) to God’s creatures is, on the whole, impossible. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because A) the biotech community probably isn’t operating on a Christian worldview, and is therefore denying the wisdom of the Creator of all things, and B) you’re probably just seeing an improvement upon the corrupted design that exists today, not on the perfect design that existed in the beginning. Indeed, it is one thing to assert the improvement of a corrupted design, and quite another to assert an improvement of an original, perfect design. Man’s goal today in biotechnology must be oriented around the former, and not the latter.

Godless biotechnology finds itself, then, in quite a conundrum: for what determines the direction of enhancement? If biology does not reflect a divine purpose, the creature inevitably fills the gap with an inferior and ever-changing purpose. Shall we make the hand stronger, or more efficient? Shall we re-engineer our children to have blue eyes and slender thighs, blonde hair and muscular arms, or something opposite? Who’s to say that building a stronger arm with problems in energy efficiency and heavy weight is more valuable on the whole than an arm that is weak, but more efficient and easier to move? Is it really “better” to have “enhanced” 12 inch genitals that create countless health problems which decrease the overall quality of the life, or to have equally functional genitals with no health problems? Indeed, the Christian presupposition regarding biotech and bioethics is not only true in principle, but in reality; steroids injections, male-enhancements, female birth and period control, the endless list of quick-fixes addressing single aspects of the human experience are plagued with negative side-effects that lead to a wholly poorer quality of life, not a greater one.

The creature who does not acknowledge his/her Creator can go in any direction, and as the Scriptures and Reformers asserted, every direction of the unbeliever is inevitably the wrong direction. The human experience will be poorer, not better. And when a group of published elites begin to objectivize and absolutize their subjective and non-absolute conclusions as to how the human body “should be,”  you can bet the quality of life and experience of human beings will quickly diminish in a society.

…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Rom 1)

In short, the creature’s attempt to restore the original creation of God (insofar is possible in a sinful world) is the proper end of biotechnology. That’s why Jesus healed and restored people instead of giving them the ability to fly or walk through walls. As Donahue from Braingate said, “In 50 years – it’s very hard to tell – but I think we’ll have people with much better control, that they would be able to carry out a range of normal functions.” This is an innocent mission until we realize that the creature who does not acknowledge the Creator will re-define what “normal” is. But it is our contention as Christian bioethicists and apologists that normality must be defined by the Creator and not the creature. Repeat with me: Normality must be defined by the Creator and not the creature.

Double-Doomed

If it is impossible to improve upon God’s design through biotechnology, why not simply clone God’s design and alter it to fit our purposes?

The morning after I saw Surrogates, I indulged in a little foolishness. I put my mind into the position of the evolutionist, secular biotechnician and thought “how would I re-engineer humanity?” I began thinking about the surrogates, and how they were essentially bio-mechanical machines that imitated everything about the regular human body.

But then it struck me. If we can’t surpass “nature’s design” (speaking in evolutionary and not Christian theistic terms), why not clone it? Why not skip the process of waiting 50 or a 100 years until we have the technology to build an inferior surrogate, and just create a test-tube clone of a DNA “perfect” human body with all the bells and whistles, remove its cortex so it doesn’t actually become a human being (without consciousness/soul/mind/self, etc.), and then insert a fake computer cortex that wirelessly corresponds to the surrogate operator-station? That way, you will have essentially transferred your mind/consciousness to not just a mechanical body, but a real, living, breathing human body that was edited to make room for your commands.

The benefit? You’ve given yourself an additional life. Just like a surrogate, if you get crushed by a truck, your consciousness simply returns to your actual body that lies safely at home.  You have all the benefits of a real human body, but without the expense or risk.

Or do you? You don’t have just one body to feed anymore…you have two. You don’t have one body that needs sleep, proper nutrition, and needs to go the bathroom several times a day, you have two. Your human surrogate is just as susceptible to diseases and STDs as your own body.

What have you actually gained by the human-body surrogate?

Nothing. Human consciousness, the self, the mind, can only occupy one body at a time. There is only one unified experience that works on the basis of one set of sensory organs. That’s because there’s only one you. And if one body is virtually dead in your house lying in a surrogate operating-station that could just as well be up and walking and doing everything you intend to do in life, why burden yourself with the high-maintenance, equal-risk, and expensive liability of a surrogate? Surrogates don’t look so promising after all.

Of course, now we get into the question of whether the human mind/consciousness can be permanently transferred from one body to another. If consciousness is spatially relative (not bound by the location of a body), can it be so always and absolutely? As far as we know, both in science and Scripture, no. The scientific community can’t place their bets on the legitimacy of that claim given that it so closely resembles the teaching of Eastern religions (i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.). More importantly, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that suggests a person/soul/mind can permanently leave one body and reside in another under any circumstance.

Conclusion

Therefore, no matter what end humans pursue in the biotechnological race to improve human experience through re-engineering and technology, it will have only succeeded – if it has succeeded at all – to improve life by getting closer to God’s original design. Every other direction will turn up empty. Again, God’s gift of life and the human experience in its sinless, unaltered state could and can never be enhanced, improved, or changed by the creature to produce a wholly better result. And again, normality must be defined by the Creator and not the creature.

“Two kinds of human consciousness: that of the regenerate and the unregenerate; and these two cannot be identical.” – Abraham Kuyper

As you can tell, these arguments are impossible to address on any religiously neutral ground. If the primary reason we can say “no” to Congress biotech bill x and y is according to divine purpose, what hope of restoring creation remains if we, even for a moment, abandon those commitments to the Creator? I fear that nothing will stop our society from pursuing the empty ends of secular biotech unless those in positions of power realize that God is God and we are not. Let us pray for this realization to happen and that God will give common grace to people who are God-conscious but not yet willing to admit it.